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Ragdoll - That is a great AOTW. Isn't it amazing how hard we find it to have that discipline to just laser in on one little thing?

Usually it's not too bad for me except this particular piece. It is just so nice and relaxing to play that I tend to do this. I'll try that suggestion of 5 times and quit, then play up to the tricky bits. Thanks.

Oh, I love Moonlight in Vermont. I always think of that movie Baby Boom when I hear it; though in the movie it's a trio not piano. A great slow dance song.

YAY, indeed! I don't know what's been troubling you, but I do know that when a cloud like that lifts, it's just about the greatest feeling in the world. I'm really glad your piano helped get you there.

It's tough, isn't it? I've sometimes resorted to sticking large post-it notes just before and after the measures I have to work on, leaving only that small section visible. (Kind of like the surgical drapes?

HAHAHAHAHA What a great metaphor! That's also a great idea with the post-its, I'm gonna try that. Thanks MaryBee.

Yeah! I've finished with Czerny's Op.849, 30 New Studies in Technics. I didn't do every exercise (teacher's suggestions) and certainly didn't get any of them to the printed metronome marking ("that's not the point" as my teacher would say multiple times.) My technique has certainly improved during the time (not just from the Czerny but I do find isolated studies very useful.)

Some don't like Czerny but I find his pieces very musical and that's the main thing.

So, now it's "Op.299, The School of Velocity" - you have to love that title! We discussed moving straight to Opus 740 (Art of Finger Dexterity) but I preferred to not rush.

What a great page of achievements...from your contemplation of your hands, Ragdoll, and your fingers BB you share the real images in your inner speech as you experience piano. FarmGirl you admire the young ones but share a personal judgment that you like your own the best. This is what I love about this forum...it's seeing the inside of musical people.

This weekend we spent all of Saturday and most of Sunday engaged with the birth of our puppies. Mystique (German Shepherd Dog) gave birth to four beautiful girls and made it look practically effortless.

Now that is not to say that I neglected my piano. My dear teacher (who hates Mendelssohn but loves me) came to my house and worked for an hour with me on my SWW. Every little measure she found something that I was neglecting and helped me play it better. Now if I could just put it all together. My little finger definitely needs more strength on a piece like this. The beauty of bringing out the top note is my AOTW.

Two great songs, cheechako. It's always good to have fun with this song.

Today I memorized the bass line from Purcell's Ground 3.5 bars, about 28 notes. Nothing at all. But it's all I need in London , as I have repeated then repeats 15 more times. A bit like Seven Nation Army!!!!!

Practised for the first time today in more than a decade! Was able to play the first page of "River flows in you" by Yiruma by the end of my 1 hr rental session without mistakes. Check out this song on youtube! It's quite simple but sounds really soothing.

Practised for the first time today in more than a decade! Was able to play the first page of "River flows in you" by Yiruma by the end of my 1 hr rental session without mistakes. Check out this song on youtube! It's quite simple but sounds really soothing.

Can't wait to finally buy my piano next week!

Love that song! Good job! Maybe next time you can play it for us on your new piano

_________________________
Adult beginner since January 2013. My only regret is that I didn't learn sooner.

I'm not sure it made me proud, because it only took me three decades to be able to do, but it became obvious to me this week that triads in any inversion look very different from sevenths in any inversion and as a result I can now see at a glance which of the two I'm playing.

Congrats Pianosaurus, mordents are tricky I find, especially since I have just started playing them. You said the piece was called Musette, may I ask who wrote the piece? If you mentioned who composed it I must have missed it. Mordents are my constant companion in the Chopin's Waltz in A minor, op. posth, that I am currently working on. This week was a good one, I had two things I was proud of firstly: I went to the same shop where I got my piano as the man who found it for me was visiting from California; so I made a party of it my mom, and sister brought brownies, it was a merry time. He mentioned this beautiful Schimmel grand piano and he wanted me to play it, and with only a bit of shaking hands in the begining I played Satie's Gnossienne no. 1, from memory. It did not sound terrible either, I was actually happy with my playing. It made me see how far I had come since I got my piano last October.

The second thing was in my lesson this week, I whizzed through all the major and minor scales with only an a minor error in two of them, in the middle of the harmonic scale started playing the relative major scale, opps. We worked on the second page of the waltz, sight reading practice came in handy there, reading the new notes was able to I was able to put both hands albeit very very slow right then and there after just practing the right only. One thing I love about teacher is absolute attention to detail, this sometimes leads to getting the dreaded nyeht! He pointed out that I was not keeping legato between this D and #C I was letting slip and why wasn't I keeping it. Then he played it the way I had been playing it and then the way it should be what a difference. I was amazed by the difference in the character of the music, I was amazed and humbled at the same instance.

Heather: congrats on your new memorization technique. That will surely be something that contributes to your progress as you move on to longer more complicated pieces – (and it has already made a difference!)

MaryBee and Malkin – post its? Hmmm….. That never occurred to me. I’d say it is only with the last 3 pieces I’ve worked on where I’ve really started to work on the troublesome measures properly. So far I haven’t had too much trouble sticking to working on them without going back to repeat the “easy” stuff. I suspect the challenge will be greater when my pieces are more complicated!

Ragdoll, I can’t speak for the others, but I won’t get tired of hearing about Canon – there’s something very special about that piece.

Andy – School of Velocity! Ack! Merely the sound of the title strikes panic into my heart! Congrats on finishing the Techniques. I have only worked with one Czerny book, but I loved it. Yes, the pieces were all exercises, but they were very very musical and I always looked forward to playing them.

Wisebuff, congrats on the puppies – they must be very pretty! Isn’t it wonderful how our teachers can show us one or two little things that have escaped us, seemingly small details, but things that make a marvelous difference to our playing? I shall look forward to hearing the beauty of the top note in your SWW. The themed recital will launch this weekend, right?

JohathonRose: I love Purcell – and I’ve found that even his simple stuff can be tricky. Will you play your piece in the e-cital coming up? Don’t be shy to join in!

Joce – how exciting to be returning to the piano. Sounds like you are off to a flying start. We look forward to hearing more about your piano adventures!

ElleC – that is an honour! Your teacher is obviously proud of her student –and you should be proud of what you’ve been able to achieve too! Brava!

JimF – sorry to correct you but I think the name of your work would be GiacomoF, Scuola di Tempi Glaciali

Whizbang – Well, it is always nice when the penny drops and you figure out something that helps you go faster!

IreneAdler – What a fun piano-reunion! You’re really flying along with your progress! It seems to me that there are quite a few folks working on the Chopin Waltz Am post. Right now – you’re in excellent company!

_________________________XVIII-XXXVIIFollow your teacher's instructions and practice wisely/much, and you'll soon wonder how you ever found it hard. BobPicklePerformance anxiety: make it part of your daily routine and deal with it...Cope! zrtf90

JimF -- After being on PW for 9 months (is that all?!?), I finally found something to put in my sig line. Thanks!

Saranoya -- Sorry to steer you wrong about the opening date on the recital. I got confused, recalling the traditional "one month to go" thread. Thanks for the very interesting and thorough description of the arts education system in Belgium. Sounds good! Here in the USA, when the economy wanes (which it always does), many school districts pick the arts as the first thing to go. Very short sighted.

earlofmar -- Congrats on the spousal feedback, that's great! You have a great sig line too.

SandTiger -- You might have posted it before and I've forgotten it, but what app are you using for Ear Training? It sounds different (and better) than those that I have tried.

ElleC -- Wow, that is quite the honor! Sounds like it could be a very large red dot!

Heather -- Welcome to AOTW... I could've sworn you had posted here already. Anyway, despite having only seen a few of your photographs, can we make an informal "rule" that each of your posts has to include at least one?

Originally Posted By: casinitaly

ATallGuyNH: How to reply to your post. Hmmmm Ok.So..you're back? Didn't miss you at all. I can't believe you took so long to figure out how to transpose from one key to another. Gee, what a slow poke. Maybe you should just face the fact that you don't have much voice range and drop the whole thing. How do you like them apples?

Now that's progress!!! A certain someone was smiling when reading this, I'm sure.

Originally Posted By: casinitaly

AAAAACK ... that was really hard to write! LOL......

I bet you had great fun figuring out how to match the key to your voice range. Welcome back....:)

But... you just can't do it for real though, can you? :-P

Originally Posted By: casinitaly

TallGuy...not speaking to me now eh? hmmm.

Originally Posted By: casinitaly

JimF – sorry to correct you but I think the name of your work would be GiacomoF, Scuola di Tempi Glaciali

Can you record this for us and post to box.com?

Originally Posted By: PaperClip

TallGuy, it seems that you need more raspberries. This topic is great to show new piano's.

I think the term that has been used here is "chuffed". I am really chuffed today. In my lesson, I managed to play Chopin Nocturne in F minor the way I wanted to play it, with virtually no errors and with emotion. I managed to block out my teacher sitting there making notes in the score to discuss, and let the music just flow from within. It is the first time that has ever happened in a lesson. My teacher was very pleased with it, and pronounced it ready to record. Now if I can do that in front of my teacher, I should be able to do in front of the recorder's red dot! Next on my job stack Tschaikovsky's June: Barcarolle. I am really excited about that one!

SandTiger -- You might have posted it before and I've forgotten it, but what app are you using for Ear Training? It sounds different (and better) than those that I have tried.

The app says "Piano Ear Training Free." I got it from the Amazon app store (Android). It has four games: higher/lower, match the pitch, interval training and chord identification. I can see measurable improvement in the six weeks I have been using the app, but there is a long way to go.

I am still on the first two games. Those with good ears might find them trivial and skip to the intervals and chord identification games.

Ipads and Iphones tend to have nicer apps, though most of them cost money. Garage Band might even contain similar games tucked away in its vastness.

_________________________XVIII-XXXVIIFollow your teacher's instructions and practice wisely/much, and you'll soon wonder how you ever found it hard. BobPicklePerformance anxiety: make it part of your daily routine and deal with it...Cope! zrtf90

I think the term that has been used here is "chuffed". I am really chuffed today. In my lesson, I managed to play Chopin Nocturne in F minor the way I wanted to play it, with virtually no errors and with emotion. I managed to block out my teacher sitting there making notes in the score to discuss, and let the music just flow from within. It is the first time that has ever happened in a lesson. My teacher was very pleased with it, and pronounced it ready to record. Now if I can do that in front of my teacher, I should be able to do in front of the recorder's red dot! Next on my job stack Tschaikovsky's June: Barcarolle. I am really excited about that one!

Definitely the right term. Awesome. So, at least two Chopin Nocturnes in the May e-cital

I haven't tackled any of Tchaikovsky's Seasons yet but a number of my teacher's students have so it's probably just a matter of time ...

Heavens no! I didn't even notice the bells. We live within 100metres from the church which gives its name to our "quarter" San Pietro - and the bells ring on the hour, on the half hour 24/7 and randomly at different times on different days for heaven only knows what reason.

_________________________XVIII-XXXVIIFollow your teacher's instructions and practice wisely/much, and you'll soon wonder how you ever found it hard. BobPicklePerformance anxiety: make it part of your daily routine and deal with it...Cope! zrtf90

_________________________XVIII-XXXVIIFollow your teacher's instructions and practice wisely/much, and you'll soon wonder how you ever found it hard. BobPicklePerformance anxiety: make it part of your daily routine and deal with it...Cope! zrtf90

_________________________XVIII-XXXVIIFollow your teacher's instructions and practice wisely/much, and you'll soon wonder how you ever found it hard. BobPicklePerformance anxiety: make it part of your daily routine and deal with it...Cope! zrtf90

This weekend we spent all of Saturday and most of Sunday engaged with the birth of our puppies. Mystique (German Shepherd Dog) gave birth to four beautiful girls and made it look practically effortless.

Oh I bet they are adorable! Would love to see their photos.....hint hint...

Quote:

Now that is not to say that I neglected my piano. My dear teacher (who hates Mendelssohn but loves me) came to my house and worked for an hour with me on my SWW. Every little measure she found something that I was neglecting and helped me play it better. Now if I could just put it all together. My little finger definitely needs more strength on a piece like this. The beauty of bringing out the top note is my AOTW.

Practised for the first time today in more than a decade! Was able to play the first page of "River flows in you" by Yiruma by the end of my 1 hr rental session without mistakes. Check out this song on youtube! It's quite simple but sounds really soothing.

I made some headway with the Bach minuet I have been working on for some weeks ( and sometimes not working on..... ) this afternoon. I have realised that I learn faster by listening to the music on you tube, as my ear skills are far better than my sight reading. Then to find a tutorial on you tube in which someone plays the music s-l-o-w. Then I can see it being played as well as hearing it. With that I've made more progress with the second bar in an hour than I did in 3 weeks alone! I had managed to play the first bar ok, but was stuck on the second bar sight reading wise, but was better if I just played it by ear. Something was wrong though, and the tutorial made me see I should have sharpened the F note! If I'd carried on by ear I probably would have finally got that, but I was trying to learn the sheet music. So, I think a combination of you tube tutorials, playing by ear and studying the sheet music is the way I learn fastest. This is in between lessons- my teacher was away at Easter and my next lesson is end of next week.I really didn't want to be as rubbish as when I last saw him LOL.